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1. An Invasion of Locusts

¹ The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

An Invasion of Locusts

    ² Hear this, you elders;
   listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
   or in the days of your ancestors?
³ Tell it to your children,
   and let your children tell it to their children,
   and their children to the next generation.
⁴ What the locust swarm has left
   the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
   the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
   other locusts The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain. have eaten.

    ⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
   Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
   for it has been snatched from your lips.
⁶ A nation has invaded my land,
   a mighty army without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
   the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ It has laid waste my vines
   and ruined my fig trees.
It has stripped off their bark
   and thrown it away,
   leaving their branches white.

    ⁸ Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth
   grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
⁹ Grain offerings and drink offerings
   are cut off from the house of the LORD.
The priests are in mourning,
   those who minister before the LORD.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
   the ground is dried up;
the grain is destroyed,
   the new wine is dried up,
   the olive oil fails.

    ¹¹ Despair, you farmers,
   wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
   because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
¹² The vine is dried up
   and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the palm and the apple Or possibly apricot tree—
   all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Surely the people’s joy
   is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

    ¹³ Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
   wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
   you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
   are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Declare a holy fast;
   call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
   and all who live in the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
   and cry out to the LORD.

    ¹⁵ Alas for that day!
   For the day of the LORD is near;
   it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Hebrew Shaddai

    ¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
   before our very eyes—
joy and gladness
   from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds are shriveled
   beneath the clods. The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
The storehouses are in ruins,
   the granaries have been broken down,
   for the grain has dried up.
¹⁸ How the cattle moan!
   The herds mill about
because they have no pasture;
   even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

    ¹⁹ To you, LORD, I call,
   for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness
   and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Even the wild animals pant for you;
   the streams of water have dried up
   and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

He then adds, Tell it to your children, your children to their children, their children to the next generation. In this verse the Prophet shows that the matter deserved to be remembered, and was not to be despised by posterity, even for many generations. It appears now quite clear that the Prophet threatens not what was to be, as some interpreters think; it would have been puerile: but, on the contrary, he expostulates here with the Jews, because they were so slothful and tardy in considering God’s judgments; and especially as it was a remarkable instance, when God employed not usual means, but roused, and, as it were, terrified men by prodigies. Of this then tell: for עליה olie means no other thing than ‘tell or declare this thing to your children;’ and further, your children to their children. When any thing new happens, it may be, that we are at first moved with some wonder; but our feeling soon vanishes with the novelty, and we disregard what at first caused great astonishment. But the Prophet here showed, that such was the judgment of God of which he speaks, that it ought not to have been overlooked, no, not even by posterity. Let your children, he says, declare it to those after them, and their children to the fourth generation: it was to be always remembered.